By Jeff Lipton
, sending about 125 gallons of oil into the soil and driveway and forcing workers to act quickly to clean up the mess before it caused problems for the environment, state and county officials said.
Oil was discovered pouring from the fuel oil tank attached to the house, at 3414 Riverside Drive, on Feb. 21 shortly before 2:30 p.m., officials said. A delivery of heating oil had recently been made to the home, and the tank was near capacity when it gave way, the result of deterioration or corrosion on the tank¹s bottom, according to Robert Hare, a supervisor at the Nassau County Fire Marshal¹s Office.
The Oceanside Fire Department was the first to respond, surveying the scene and immediately summoning the Nassau County Hazardous Materials Unit of the fire marshal¹s office.
Hare said the homeowner was on vacation, but a caretaker called the supplier for the home, Morania Oil Company of Long Island, to investigate the source of the leak. The homeowner has a contract with the oil company that if such a problem occurs, the company is responsible for the cleanup. As a result, Morania called Milro Environmental Corp., a licensed contractor, to clean up the spill.
Bill Fonda, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which also was notified about the leak, said the hole in the tank was plugged at about 4 p.m., stopping any more oil from spilling. Fonda said that the more than 100 gallons of fuel that escaped left a puddle in the driveway about 30 feet long, 8 feet wide and 6 inches deep. He explained that Milro had used a suction device similar to a vacuum to soak up the oil from the soil, driveway and walkway. The home sits about 20 feet from a canal, but the fuel apparently never reached the water, officials said.
³If it got into the canal, we would have had to dredge it,² said Fonda. ³But they responded fairly quickly to vacuum it up.²
Milro worked into the night to clean up the spill, Hare said. ³I¹m sure it¹s all been resolved,² he added. ³Milro is good at that sort of thing and it¹s not a real complex job. Fortunately, the homeowner had a contract with the fuel company for them to get someone to do the cleanup.²
Officials said they would inspect the cleanup over the next few days, but expected there to be minimal, if any, damage to the environment.
Donna Jacobsen, the owner of the home since 1997, said she was on vacation in Pompano Beach, Fla., when the spill occurred. A neighbor who was caring for her cats and had a key to her house called her up and told her what had happened. ³That put a little damper on [the vacation],² said Jacobsen, who returned to Oceanside the day after the spill, when most of it was already cleaned up.
³Thank God the ground was frozen,² said Jacobsen, indicating that that helped prevent more oil from being absorbed into the soil.
As part of the cleanup, she said, workers have been ripping up her asphalt driveway and scraping the dirt on her property, a project that was expected to be finished by Wednesday. She said she refused to allow herself to stress out over the spill. ³My mother, mother-in-law and husband all died within a two-year period,² Jacobsen said. ³I believe I can handle a spill like this. Nobody got killed or hurt.²
Jacobsen said she has been given a temporary oil tank filled with 150 gallons of oil until she gets a new tank. ³I knew the tank was about 20 years old, but I didn¹t expect something like this to happen,² she said.
Hare said that Riverside Drive remained open to traffic after the discovery of the leak and during the cleanup, and that there was never a concern that the heating oil, which is combustible, would ignite. He said the main concern was the possible threat to the environment. ³Fuel oil, once it gets into the soil, can kill grass and plants,² Hare explained, adding that the extent of the possible damage would not be known for weeks.
He said that since the spill was deemed an accident, no summonses were issued. But he went on to say that the incident should serve as a warning to homeowners to have their fuel tanks carefully inspected, whether they are indoors or outdoors.
³If a fuel tank is 20 or 25 years old, the tanks should be carefully inspected for rust or deterioration,² Hare said. ³That fuel tank was just filled, and they could¹ve lost the entire 275 gallons.²
Comments about this story? JLipton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 210.
